Meta-physics
Loyalists vs. Liberators As everyone acknowledges each others’ rights to worship which ever god from the Pantheon they want, conflict lines are not centred around individual deities. Main conflicts, instead, go along primarily two lines. One is the scholastic exercise of who interprets a god’s will correctly. This is mostly something that emerges among academics or the deeply faithful, and can certainly lead to war on occasion (see the Holy Kishate), but isn’t much of an issue of the average Trakorian on the average day. A more common and low key driver of conflict, is instead the basic attitude to the make up of Creation. The Animist Inquisition, called the Abzulve, is devoted to defending the Creation as the gods intended it from those who try to disrupt the harmony and balance they created. Violations and Violators of the Creation are hunted with a passion. As it happens, the Abzulve also considers monotheism a Violation of Creation, as it denies the existence of almost all the gods. There is thus a constant conflict simmering under the calm surface of everyday life, where the Abzulve tries to locate Violators and stop them from harming the Creation. Its focus is currently not on the Shining Path, as that faith is centred far from Trakoria and has few important followers on the islands. This is not to suggest that the Creation loyalists are always defending the status quo or stagnation. Creating life and destroying it are both needed for life to continue and be renewed. Predators are as much a part of the cycle as prey is. The opposition is rather focused on those who would unravel the very fabric of reality as the gods have made it itself. Those who turn against the gods see themselves as freedom fighters. They would argue that gods are holding all sentient beings as prisoners, and that the world we walk in is, in fact, that prison. In their mind, their defiance is an act of resistance and liberation, aiming to fulfill the full potential of sentient beings who should no longer be held in thrall by the gods and their fickle wills. Particularly wizards and sorcerers are prone to agree with this, as magic provides the user with considerable power. The reason that they can make a point and gain followers is that no one really thinks of the gods as ‘the good guys’ (unlike, say, the followers of the Shining Path). Rather, people have the same attitudes towards the gods as one would have found in Ancient Greece, Rome or among the Vikings: the gods are very powerful beings. When they are in a bad mood, everyone should do their best to appease them. But it’s also possible to gain their favour and blessing, and sometimes necessary. Prophecy Of particular significance for the learned in both Trakoria and elsewhere in Ereb are prophesies. The first are believed to be hints and clues about the gods’ already completed plan for the world. The key to knowing whether a prophecy has substance or are just the writings of some wannabe is whether the prerequisites within it have been fulfilled. “If the wagon’s wheels find the track, it will follow it”, is a common saying among those studying this stuff. Notably, scholars have concluded that it is possible to either block or facilitate prophecies by stopping or helping those prerequisites from being fulfilled. Thus, there is a group of people who are constantly engaged in such activities. Numbers The sacred properties of numbers are commonly acknowledged, but there’s much debate about which numbers are sacred and why. Animists, and particularly the Abzulve, hold the number four to be sacred, arguing that all is created based on this - consider the four elements, for example. This is based on Enki’s saying that everything is made up by four aspects. For them, the number three is incomplete and only allowed as a means of transitioning to four. Those who resist the gods, in their turn, often argue that three is the holy number, and thus the feud between Loyalists and Liberators continue. Other numbers are also held to be holy by some scholars: the dichotomous two, the five of the pentagram, naturally occurring hexagons, etc. Confluxes The most significant magical events of this world are the Confluxes. They occur when the stars align in a particular position, and are usually centered in a particular geographic position. The events are almost always very dramatic, and invariably change the flow of history in some decisive way. For instance, the Third Conflux ended the Jorpagnan Empire about 600 years ago.